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This is Riley. She is a 5-month-old Pit Bull mix. She found us on a cold and blistering midnight in February. My partner and I were living in a one-bedroom apartment with two cats, not looking for a dog until we purchased our first home. When she stuck her little block head through our back porch, she was soaked and shivering with bones sticking out all over and a perfect burn mark on her little...

In my area, shelters are filled with Pit Bulls and Pit-mixes. The breed makes up a large percentage of the 50,000 homeless pets that enter New York City shelters each year. Sometimes it feels like all 50,000 homeless pets that enter New York City shelters each year are Pits.
To help reduce the number of homeless Pit Bulls in New York, the ASPCA recently launched a new initiative called...

August is the season of culture-lite, when art institutions avoid demanding fare. But that doesn’t mean there’s not a lot of pleasure to be had in comedies performed on park lawns, or orchestras flouncing through Broadway standards, or gallery walls filled with, well, “approachable” subject matter. The current photography exhibit at Corden/Potts Gallery in San Francisco is just such a seasonal...

It’s August, and that means one thing around here: Leo’s birthday is coming up. Maybe it’s because I like to throw parties or I’m obsessed with my dogs (or both), but it’s a priority for me to acknowledge my dogs’ birthdays. Leo’s big day is the day before my best friend Carrie’s, which means a dual birthday party to ensure a better turnout. (For some reason, Carrie is more popular than Leo; she...

There are a zillion stories about the amazing effects of therapy dogs on people, but this one moved me even more than usual. A husband was with his dying wife in a Florida hospital when Pogo, a Shetland sheepdog came to visit. The wife began to pet the dog, wrapped her arms around him, and smiled. It had been a long time since she had smiled, and it was to be her last one. She died the next day...

The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is voluntarily expanding its recall to include veterinary and some specialized dry pet food, including Iams Veterinary Dry Formulas, Eukanuba Naturally Wild, Eukanuba Pure and Eukanuba Custom Care Sensitive Skin, as a precautionary measure because it has the potential to be contaminated with salmonella. No salmonella-related illnesses have been reported...

I’m sitting in an airport, waiting for my final flight home to Reno from our capital. Back to my life as it was last week – but not exactly. The No Kill Conference 2010 was revitalizing for me and inspirational for all, but I expected nothing less. The aftermath buzz is that this year was even more wonderful than last year.
But the conference was about the future. Nathan Winograd, founder of...

Here’s another for the No Good Deed Goes Unpunished annals. It seems an Anglican priest in Canada, recently, slipped a holy wafer to a congregant’s dog during communion. Most witnesses were unfazed by the gesture. But a displeased parishioner complained up the church hierarchy creating a tempest in the temple. The result: No more communion for dogs. But, happily, the dog can still attend services...

The town of Littleton, Co., is on edge this summer due to coyote attacks on a young boy and pet dogs. Early Saturday morning, Buster the Chihuahua mix was grabbed by a coyote while he and his owner were outside their home. The neighbor's Pit Bulls chased after the coyote who then dropped Buster. The little dog crawled under a bush and the Pit Bulls guarded him until the coyote was gone and Buster...